Should the US link Iran to Taiwan to get China on board?
Matthew Kroenig has a really great piece in The New Republic that nicely articulates why China and Russia don’t care too much about Iran’s nuclear pursuits.
I think in some regards he doesn’t give Moscow enough credit. At the end of the day, Russia really has more at stake with a nuclear Iran on its southern and Muslim edge, so they are more amenable to diplomatic efforts pursued by the United States and friend. Indeed, Russia has been able to hide behind Chinese intransigence when it comes to Iran to some extent, and not stick its neck out as far as it might otherwise feel compelled to. And there’s little evidence that Russian government entities officially backed Iran’s efforts to development uranium enrichment capabilities, as Russia has a commercial interest in supplying nuclear fuel to the reactor that it’s building for Iran at Bushehr.
But when it comes to China, Kroenig is dead on:
An Iranian bomb, then, won’t disadvantage China or Russia. In fact, it might even help them. Neither country has hidden its desire to hem in America’s unilateral ability to project power, and a nuclear-armed Iran would certainly mean a more constrained U.S. military in the Middle East. Indeed, at times during the 1980s and 1990s, Beijing and Moscow aided Tehran with important aspects of its nuclear program. While we don’t have detailed information on the motives behind the assistance, we do know that governments don’t export sensitive nuclear technologies for economic reasons alone. Rather, as I show in my forthcoming book, they generally do so in an attempt to hinder their enemies. For example, France helped Israel acquire the bomb in the late 1950s and early 1960s in order to balance against Nasser’s Egypt, and China provided nuclear aid to Pakistan in the 1980s to impose strategic costs on its longtime rival India.It is likely that China and Russia’s nuclear assistance to Iran waspartly intended as a counterweight to American power in the Middle East. Although these countries no longer actively aid Iran’s nuclear program, they may still secretly welcome its development.
If China is going to continue to play this game, America has to start making it clear that there will be consequences. As China seeks to expand its global role, it continues to face irritants in its immediate sphere – Southeast Asian neighbors eager to limit their naval expansion, a Japan that could in a matter of weeks become a major nuclear power and fundamentally change their strategic calculations, and a nationalist Taiwan eager to retain its independence in the face of expanding Chinese power.
If preventing a nuclear Iran from emerging is really such a high priority for America, we must make it clear that China has to be involved in any diplomatic solution. And America needs to make Beijing understand that it has diplomatic levers in China’s sphere of interest that are not in the Middle East.
Taiwan and its military needs and wants should be seen as one of those levers. If President Obama really wants to make progress with China, he should start linking the American security relationship with Taiwan to China’s intransigence on Iran. If China gives succor to Iran and adds steel to its resolve to resist western efforts to broker a peaceful solution to the problem of their nuclear program, this administration could make it clear that America will find new ways to enhance Taiwan’s military capabilities to deter any menacing Chinese behavior.
It’s all a matter of priorities. The United States continues to be the strongest military power in East Asia, and we have some notches remaining in the belt in that part of the world. But in the Middle East, a combination of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, the remainders of the Iraq War, and concerns about al Qaida limit our room for maneuver where Iran is concerned. Thus it would be a smart move on the Obama administration’s part to take the leeway we still have in East Asia to help ease us out of some of the rocks and hard places we face with Iran.
And if China wants to make America hurt in a difficult place, America should remind China that we still have some weapons in our armory, and that some of them can go to East Asia.
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Americas power complex to police the world and govern all nations with its inability to step aside and let a country produce something that America also produces is hypocritical. 9/11 wasnt the reason to goto Iraq. Oil is. To establish oil reserves and contract out that oil to allied countrys. There is more oil in the earth to supply the world virtually forever. Even in America. We are destablizing the middle east to level the battle field. The world is begining to notice ever so slightly but surely that the American way is control and disobedience will constitute damnation. Soon we will see the effects from this war waged , not for 9/11 but for our own independence. Who controls the media. Who controls our money. Who controls every inch way of life you live. Corporations. Not the America you were taught to believe. Did you take your pill today. Have you watched your mind controlbox. Wake up. http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
The American China relationship for the last 30 years had been one of continued abuse, with America being the abuser, trampling on China’s core interests and the feelings of the Chinese people. America singlehandedly blocked China’s unification. In the Chinese mind that is a deep national wound yearly being reopened with salt rubbed in anew, with more weapons sale to encourage Taidu. On top of that, America never gave up on splitting China into more pieces – ergo supporting the slave king Dalai, hypocritically on the basis of “human rights”. Deep national wounds come at a price; don’t you for a minute believe that there is no price tag attached, or doubt the fact that somehow or another the bill will come due.
With that as background, are you really so sure about this supposed military advantage in E Asia? Japan the nuclear power in a month? Oh yeah, given the wonderful memories of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the more than 80,000 cases of rape, robbery, thievery, killings, running over locals with military vehicles, and other sundry violence, NONE OF WHICH was tried in a Japanese court, thanks to the SOFA with the occupying force, it must be solidly reassuring. BLOWBACK is such a comforting thought, when you combine Bushido (no, not that of Bush!!) with its need to avenge honor even if it takes generations, with nukes. S. Korea? I think Kim (II) would chomp at the bit for a little fraticide, justified since the South suffers from the same foreign occupation. S. Korea recently refused to take back the supreme command of its military forces from the occupying administration. A real conflict in that small block of real estate (the lack of strategic depth is the bane of small countries) will take Korea back 60 years. One less competitor for Asia. So who else is in E. Asia?
Abuses debase BOTH the abused and the abuser. For the China American relationship to get on a healthy footing, America has to stop its abusing ways, and seek true cooperation.
I won’t argue with you in any way that China was victimized in the period preceding and up through World War Two by Japan and other powers. But those years are long past. China is now the most booming economy in the world, and we are not many years off from the point in time in which it will be the most powerful economy in the world.
I am very optimistic for China, so optimistic in fact that I think it’s time China cease the invocation of its victimhood and start behaving like a responsible global power. The question is whether China wants to continue behaving like the sickly G-77 economies it tries to lead, or acknowledge that its sovereign actions have powerful international implications. By always bringing up all the terrible things done to China in previous years, Beijing’s defenders seek to excuse all the irresponsible actions it pursues now.
In response to another comment. See in context »See the abuser has gotten so used to doing the abusing, it is now claiming that to be a RIGHT!! We are NOT talking about victimization in yesteryears. We are talking about TODAY. On Taiwan military weapons sale, Taiwan is literally just
[sorry that was sent by mistake]
Mr. Roston:
See the abuser has gotten so used to doing the abusing, it is now literally claiming that to be a RIGHT!! We are NOT talking about victimization in yesteryears. We are talking about TODAY.
On Taiwan military weapons sales, Taiwan is literally just miles away from the Mainland’s east cost. As an analogy, do you see China selling tens of billions of “purely defensive weapons” to Cuba or Venezuela? On glorifying the Dalai, do you doubt it at all that should China choose to do so, there’d be LOTS of native American groups, each with their “purely religious leaders” (perhaps no more political than the Southern Baptists, I’m sure) that would dearly love to gain “greater autonomy” from the United States – peaceably, of course (OF COURSE).
It is not that the demand is not there, but China understands that these are things that are a little close to America’s core interests, and that Americans may not like such conduct, and thus China refrains. But what is good must be universal, and action WILL beget reaction, even if delayed.
China’s encouragement of Native American leaders (if they can find one) would be about as persuasive to the broader American public as Hugo Chavez’s encouragement of various American leftists to action ends up being. Just like most of the Chinese people don’t really buy into anything the Dalai Lama has to say.
But this is all pretty irrelevant. America seldom directly interferes in China’s domestic affairs – we mostly check and double check each other on foreign matters. As much as Beijing likes to scream about Taiwan being a domestic matter, no one else in the world buys that position. And if you’re saying that an action begets a reaction, you have to acknowledge that the reaction itself feeds back to its source. If China wants to continue winking at Iran as it flouts international law and makes itself a more dangerous player in international affairs, China will contend with tangible consequences. That’s what grown-up major powers, especially ones with 1.2 billion people and an enormous chunk of the world’s economic growth, must acknowledge if they want anyone to take them seriously. The only people who believe China are victims of abuse at this moment are Chinese nationalists who are unwilling to see how things look from other foreign capitals.
In response to another comment. See in context »Double standards again. There is nothing illegal about China’s diplomacy. China is a permanent member of the Security Council. If necessary, it is totally within China’s privilege and right to use the veto – although China has been much more judicious in the use of such privilege, compared to America’s use of same for Israel.
China did not set the rules. China follows the rules, and fully expects the entitlements under the rules. America actually has explicit laws prohibiting the natives from having government to government dealings with foreign nations. China should have the same rules that apply to the Dalai. What is good must be universal.
I’m not going to debate the minutiae of all this with you, I’ll just close in saying that I never called Beijing’s diplomacy illegal, I said that it tacitly encourages illegal Iranian behavior because it suits China’s national interest. When you take these actions, there are often consequences – you don’t go whining about what a victim your nation has been. When America backs some of Israel’s more foolhardy moves, we bear the consequences of those actions, and that often means standing alone in UN fora while the rest of the world brays at the Jewish state. We should treat China like more of a peer by making sure they understand that if they undermine our national interests, we will create headaches for them, too.
In response to another comment. See in context »“America seldom directly interferes in China’s domestic affairs….”
Thou art speaking the words of the blind with eyes wide open. Everyone in China knows that TAM was paid for and orchestrated by America, as just another one in the 20th Century’s parade of attempted color revolutions.
Selling weapons to Taiwan not a direct interference in China’s domestic affair? By your “logic”, if England supplied the South with tens of billions of dollars in “purely defensive weapons” during America’s Civil War, it would have been “not a direct interference in America’s domestic affair”?
Walk a mile in the other person’s moccasins?
Not all tribes are blessed with casinos. There are lots who’d enjoy increased economic progress and greater autonomy – no less than what the Dalai is demanding (for an area 1/3 the territory of the nation). It is plain BS to claim that the Western pols are meeting the Dalai as a “religious leader.”
BTW, in dealing with the West now for more than half a decade, China has long since learned that you do not get taken seriously by acting like a doormat, doing something just because the Westerners demanded it.
Again, what is good must be universal, and do unto others only what you want do unto you. Grown up major powers flex their muscles as part of the ongoing “dance.” China is still a relatively poor nation and needs decades more, if not a century, to catch up or leapfrog the developed world, and so has chosen to work with any and all comers who are friendly and who want to deal on the basis of equality. The best way to get China’s cooperation is to cooperate with China, and stop trampling on China’s core interests.
Often times it is useful to see yourself in the eyes of others, as in a mirror of truth.
Here’s how our Indian friends, a staunch ally to America, no less, see the situation. The view is broadly shared outside America, where folks are not continually intoxicated from imbibing irresponsible coolade propaganda.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/83455/World/America+on+the+path+to+self-destruct.html
Actually the situation is even worse than that depicted, as you see Prez. Obama BACK OFF from banking reforms this week (didn’t he just came out on radio or TV and apologized and fawned, saying that he did not begrudge the salary of some banker?), when the democrats face being cut off wholesale from hundreds of millions of bribes (oh so sorry for the typo – I mean compaign contributions) from the money bags of the banksters. Ah, the irrefutable superiority of Western style democracy!!
America is clearly in a time of need today, as its priorities are hopelessly screwed up; America needs China’s help, not China’s ire.